The growth of the technological world has brought new business opportunities for evolution that contribute to its sustainability.

However, to the same extent, challenges and needs change, leading to the creation of new solutions.

In this sense, DevSecOps appears, which is the culmination of a set of application development methodologies capable of enhancing your business.

To explain this concept it is necessary to explore others, as you will find in this article.

Waterfall VS. Agile

In the past, most projects were developed according to the Waterfall methodology.

There is an initial phase of receiving information, of what they were like customers’ needs, in order to define and validate requirements and establish a plan to achieve the desired results.

During the next phase, the project was implemented according to these indications.

Thus, throughout the process there was no involvement of the customer, since the customer only had access to what had been done during the product testing phase. So, there was no room for change.

Often, at the end of time, businesses have already suffered from this type, leading to the need to change and the result of the project was no longer adequate.

Hence comes Agile – a more flexible model, where there is constant interaction with the client, in order to make the necessary changes throughout the project.

This methodology then brings the vision of the customer and suppliers closer.

Furthermore, thanks to this feedback sharing, it is possible to deliver the software more quickly, in cycles of 2 weeks. At the end of that time, the customer already has something to test and make adjustments, if necessary.

Still, Agile is the starting point for the following two methodologies, which subordinate the layers of value to a project based on this model.

What is DevOps?

With Agile, the application development process is carried out by the development team, which leaves the scene as soon as an application / solution is ready to be made available to users.

From there, it is the responsibility of the operations team.

That is, each team performs its full function: function, design and development of the application on the one hand, and operation on the other.

The DevOps development method changes this reality: it articulates the work and skills of both, leading to share the same language to solve problems quickly and achieve a quality product that meets the needs of the client and users. 

Imagine this scenario: when the application / solution is made available to the public for which it is intended, the operations team monitors it. When receiving problem feedback, he exposes this scenario to the development team for analysis and implements the necessary changes, validated by the client.

The entire process thus functions as an infinite cycle of information sharing.

What is DevSecOps?

With DevOps, the development team has several concerns to ensure aspects related to the code, such as:

• Be well written;
• Be readable;
• Be easy to maintain;
• Be easy to maintain.

On the other hand, issues related to the security of the application / solution are the responsibility of the operations team, namely to check if the network is secure, if there are vulnerabilities or points of security failure.

However, the “Shift Left” movement arises, which transports some of these security issues to the development stage.

This means that there is no need to wait for an application to be made available to users for security concerns.

DevSecOps then adds a kind of security layer around the entire application development cycle, which leads to these concerns being shared throughout the process.

The idea is that, at the outset, the application / solution is already planned and developed to be safe.

As?

Thanks to technological developments, through a set of tools that allow that, at the same time that the code is being written, it is simultaneously being validated for security.

In case of failure, alerts are automatically issued for problems, even offering some suggestions on how to solve them.

With DevSecOps, the product is developed to be safe, operators continue to have some concerns in this area, namely to understand if there are issues that raise security doubts, which they should report to the development team, so that the possible fault is resolved.

The current tools allow to speed up the recovery process, since they can assign the tasks to be performed to whoever is responsible for them.

Since DevSecOps works with the same 2-week review and redesign periods, problems can be resolved quickly, decreasing the possibility of damaging the business.

Why is DevSecOps important?

However, the world is constantly changing, and this change can change business models. An example of this is the pandemic that we are going through – many companies felt the need to change their needs within a few months. In fact, the type of model (Waterfall or Agile) depends on the business. Usually, the former is mostly used in watertight businesses, which do not undergo major changes.

With Agile, thanks to the quick reaction capacity, there is a chance to change priorities, adapting the product development to the requirements of the moment, as the flaws are resolved during the process, avoiding the need for extra costs for remediation, after the product be made available.

There is also the possibility of a niche that has not been explored so far that becomes a vulnerability, as the ways to attack a system are more and more ingenious, so it is important to bet on a secure continuous development. 

The way to go for the good of the business

This way, you will know that the work is meticulous. Making a secure application is already a complex task. Thus, cases that require more security naturally imply more development time.

The goal: to mitigate the vulnerability of your application through various tools.

Combining a great capacity to react to requirements or problems with a structural concern with security should not be a slow process, benefiting from the tools that allow validating the security of the implemented applications / solutions.

Regardless of the losses you may suffer from the disruption of operations, there is a greater loss that is important not to underestimate: the credibility of your business.

Remember that it is not about restoring a backup – built over time, once lost it can be difficult, or even impossible, to restore.

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